Mobile gaming isn’t really a thing I spend a lot of time with. The market is overrun with games that are basically nothing but money printing machines. Games meant to get you addicted and feel like you need to spend money to be on par. Sure, there’s a lot of games you pay for once the same way you do on PC and consoles but I have trouble staying engaged in gaming on mobile.

Basically what I want from a mobile game, or rather any kind of game, is a non-addictive casual game. I want to be able to not play for a day, or a week, or a month only to come back and have missed a whole lot. When it comes to mobile I want to spend time actually playing the game and not collecting daily rewards and doing the same daily tasks over and over for mediocre rewards of “premium” currency. I want to pick up the game, play it for as long as I want and turn it off.

I’ve tried a ton of mobile games. Most get uninstalled rather quickly and I think it’s been almost a year since the last time I downloaded a new game. The games I have installed now have all been installed for a year or more and I still play them regularly. Let’s take a look.

Idle Slayer

Idle Slayer is a pretty relaxed game and the newcomer amongst my games. It’s an idle game made by a single game developer for mobile. It’s an auto runner where the only actions you can really do are tap the screen to jump and shoot your bow. It’s perfect to pick and play for a couple of minutes to just shut off your brain.

Progress is made in terms of acquiring gold and upgrading gear. By defeating monsters you also acquire souls which can be used to ascend. Ascending gives you points to spend in the skill tree which gives different passive upgrades or unlocks new areas of the game in term of zones or permanent upgrades.

There really isn’t a goal to this game apart from the ones you set yourself. If you just want to see numbers increase you can do that or you can try and unlock all the upgrades or complete the skill tree. The skill tree is huge so that’s quite the task.

I don’t play this every day but I check in every now and then if I remember to. There’s offline Progression in terms of gold collection and monster killing for souls. This means the game can be played both actively and passively. Quite quaint.

Idle Skilling

Yes, another idle games. This one is very different from Idle Slayer and my favorite game in this genre. This is a game that plays and progresses all on its own and the only active engagement you have with it comes in form of management. Leveling up skillers and tools and choosing which tasks to work on next.

What makes this game great is the enormous depth that it has. Starting off you only have a couple of skillers working leveling up skills like strength and dexterity. You eventually unlock combat and from there it spirals into an enormous game with botany, dungeon delving, pet breeding, mining, fishing, boss battling and you name it.

Progression comes in form of leveling everything up and several levels of ascension. The game always progresses while you play and while you don’t play, and it can be played for years before you’re even close to unlocking and seeing everything it has to offer.

As the years has gone by I’m playing this less and less. I check in every now and then to see how things are progressing. I start some tasks and I level up some workers or gear. It’s like having a small empire that runs in the background.

Kingdom Rush

The Kingdom Rush games has been following me for years. I have no idea when I played the first one but it’s been several years and several phones since then. These are tower defense games. Really good ones. There’s four of them, including a Sci-Fi one called Iron Marines that’s pretty much the same thing set in the future instead of a fantasy setting.

In these games you can’t just place towers as you want, but instead you place them in designated spots. You have four towers to choose from which each has their strengths. Some are stronger and weaker against the different kinds of enemies. Each tower can again be upgraded into several branching paths. There’s also a decent skill tree which can be unlocked as you progress to boost the strength of your towers.

There’s a lot of levels in each game and each level can be played in several modes. There’s the campaign mode with three different difficulties and there’s a Iron Mode and a Heroic mode. These pits you against tougher enemies, gives you only one life or makes certain towers unavailable requiring different tactical approaches to beating each level.

I can play these games over and over and never tire. I’ve never managed to beat every challenge in all of the games so I’m slowly working towards that.

Puzzle Games

I always have several puzzle games present on my phone. There’s so many great ones but there’s a few that’s been with me for years.

Sudoku is and will forever be an all time classic. I love learning new strategies to beat harder and harder puzzles. 1010 is a great high score chasing game that can always be played for a quick round while waiting for something. Four plus and Blockudoku are puzzlers where you place blocks and need to be careful as to not fill the board. All easy games to pick up and play for a little while with new high scores to be chased.

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So that’s the mobile games I’ve been playing for years. All great games that I never tire of and I hope I never will. Of you’ve played any of these please let me know what you think about them. Feel free to drop recommendations if there’s anything you think I would like. Just know that I’m skipping anything with $100+ of microtransactions.